Christmas and New Year are cicada time in southern Australia. Here are large numbers of Red Eye cicadas feeding on smooth-barked eucalypts. They can be seen inserting their stylet mouthparts into the tree to get at the sap. If successful, the sap flows at a pressure and the insect fills quickly and the insect expels the excess repeatedly. Under heavily infested trees there is a soft rain of sap! Male cicadas make their loud calls, as seen, to attract females. The high volume of these calls may distract and put off predatory birds.